Shows & Meets

Story and photos by Justin Clements
Vehicles supplied by wealthy people with nice cars

Sunday mornings are a bit of a problem for me.

They don't exist.

For the last 20 years I have avoided Sunday mornings like the plague. As far as I was concerned, Sunday mornings were something to sleep through rather than be enjoyed. But for reasons I won't go into, I've actually started enjoying Sunday mornings and doing "car" type things.

Other than tunnel runs which everyone knows are best at 6am on a Sunday morning in London!

Had the great pleasure of finding a small Triumph Owners Club meet last weekend. Not the sort of thing you'd usually stumble across, but noteworthy enough I felt.

And it's always good to see these cars out on a run.

Can't really say much about the cars as I don't know Triumphs enough, but for old cars, they all seemed pretty reliable (far more reliable than some owners clubs I've seen).

Plus, these guys were game to be out on quite a grotty day. Apparently the lack of numbers was due to a large number of "fair weather" owners as they put it. Which is a shame really.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures!

I had the great pleasure last weekend to attend Race Retro. Have to admit that the weather wasn't exactly nice, and after a hectic Saturday energy wasn't exactly high. Plus I'm driving Goat around trying to exceed 70mpg, it was going to be a slow trip up to Coventry.

A few weeks ago, we were invited out by the V8 Mentalists Club for a cruise.

A quick count of the cylinders in our car as we figure the 8 thing was important, and yup, we have 8 cylinders. In one car as well. And in a V that also seemed to be important. So we tagged along for a fantastic day.

Part of the day was spent at the London Motor Museum. Ever heard of it? Nor had we. But what an absolute gem of a find.

As we crashed the place with the club, the entry fee was waived, but under normal circumstances, (eg turning up with a club with less than 8 cylinders) you will get shaken down for £10. If you like old American cars, with the occasional Europe classic thrown in, then this is the place.

Many of the cars can be described as custom, maybe used for a season or two, and then stored in this museum. Judging from a few paintwork clues, some of the cars have been there for a few years.

The place also has it's own workshop, so maybe (didn't get it confirmed), it's like American Hot Rod crossed with London Town. Hot rods for a cold climate.

The museum also goes on for a fair distance as well. This isn't a single room of cars, more like 6-8 large rooms of cars, so it's definitely worth the money. If you can clear the place in under 30 minutes, you are walking too fast, and aren't taking enough pictures.

Talking of pictures, here are the best pictures we could come up with!

Thanks to V8 Mentalists for having us along.

We've been attending the Krispy Kreme American Classics at Shannon Corner, New Malden now for several months.

We posted out first trip down here back in November, but we have attended twice before with varying problems - mainly being that we were late. Trouble is that first thing on a Sunday morning we aren't at our best.

In fact, we were so poor in January, we managed to sit in Krispy Kreme having a late breakfast (1130am), and all the cars had left before we turned on our cameras. But then we had been in a photoshoot in London the previous night and hadn't actually got to bed until 3-4am.

And we're getting old.

But this month, despite another late night shoot in London on the previous night, we made that special effort to drag ourselves out of bed after 3 hours sleep.

Most of these pictures do have a bit of processing on them. If you would like any of these photos as a screensaver or desktop, drop me a line at circuit@streetsafari.com.

Enjoy!

Krispy Kreme American car meet is an incredibly interesting chance to see some proper old American Iron. It's a once monthly meet at Krisy Kreme (obviously) at Shannon Corner in New Malden.

So the question is, as a car enthusiast what is interesting about old American cars - style.

These old classics ooze style in a way that nothing made in Europe even gets close to. We've all seen the background to some of these ideas, whether the designers were trying to make the cars look like missiles, or airplanes, or spaceships. Whatever the motivation was, they had free reign to make these stunning cars.

One hundred TVRs, two AA breakdown vehicles, and ten tunnels in London. It's 5:00 AM and it's a tunnel run.

The premise of a tunnel run is very simple; find some tunnels and make as much noise as you can. It's worth pointing out that this is not about speed, although, speed is something of a side effect. But generally, as quickly as you gain speed, you scrub it off again.

So the job at hand isn't about speed, it's about hearing your engine howl in a tunnel, and it's something that 8cyl engines do very well.

Get ready for a really huge understatement: The Classic Car Show is a big show!

This is the premier show for classic cars (obviously) in the United Kingdom and StreetSafari does have a (tenuous) link to classic shows in that we wreck cars that will eventually become collectible. Quite simply, our activities thin out the numbers of car and in turn adds to the value of future classics - eg cars that don't fall into our clutches.

StreetSafari is always looking for car related articles for the website, so if you do something car related and have the ability to write your thoughts down in a semi-coherent manner, preferably sober, and can take a good picture or two, then drop us a line and we'll probably publish it!

This weekend we went up to Honister Slate Mine to watch the Vintage Sports Car Club run their hill climb event.

The "Vintage" in their name should probably give away the age of these cars, which were built anywhere between the very early 1900s to around 1930.

Here we go again! Four more days in one of the UK's leading motoring shows.

These are pictures from MPH08 NEC. Classic Car Show pictures to follow shortly.

Starting with a shot of the stand, of course. Remember, it's a Kia Pride and not a Delta Integrale!